Inside Australia's Flawed War

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A newly declassified report obtained by Fairfax Media reveals Australia's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was undertaken solely to enhance our alliance with the US. David Wroe investigates.

O n the night of April 12, 2003, Australia’s military commander in the Middle East, Brigadier Maurie McNarn, was woken by a phone call telling him that a RAAF Hercules would soon fly into Baghdad airport to deliver medical supplies for the Iraqi capital’s looted hospitals.

The caller was his boss, then Chief of the Defence Force General Peter Cosgrove. Nevertheless, McNarn protested, saying the airport was not secure and there was no safe way to distribute the supplies to 40 hospitals across the crumbling capital. Cosgrove, now Sir Peter, the nation’s Governor-General, told him to make it happen. It was being announced to the press in 30 minutes.

Operation Baghdad Assist went ahead and became a media triumph for then prime minister John Howard and Sir Peter amid a deeply unpopular war. The Hercules, carrying three journalists and 13 commandos to provide protection, was the first Australian plane to land in Baghdad after the invasion a month earlier.

But the medical supplies never made it out of the airport. They rotted. A second planeload was diverted to the city of Nasiriyah, whose hospitals were already relatively well stocked. McNarn would go on to dismiss the whole thing as a “photo opportunity”. Special forces commander Lieutenant-Colonel Rick Burr, who learned of the operation on CNN, was equally upset, writing in his diary that the operation made “a mockery of our approach”.

It’s one of many startling revelations in a 572-page, declassified internal report on the Iraq War obtained by Fairfax Media under freedom of information laws. Written between 2008 and 2011 by Dr Albert Palazzo from Defence’s Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, it is by far the most comprehensive assessment of our involvement in the war. Originally classified “Secret”, it was finally released last week after more than 500 redactions.

The report concludes that Howard joined US president George W. Bush in invading Iraq solely to strengthen Australia’s alliance with the US. Howard’s – and later Kevin Rudd’s – claims of enforcing UN resolutions, stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism, even rebuilding Iraq after the invasion, are dismissed as “mandatory rhetoric”.

Howard and Sir Peter, facing domestic political pressure, ensured that Australian lives were exposed to as little risk as possible. The result was a contribution that was of only modest military use and, in many cases, made little sense. Politically, delivering the right force was “secondary to the vital requirement of it just being there” but it led some American military officers to grumble that Australia was providing “a series of headquarters”.

It was managed from the top with a keen eye for the politics and the public relations, yet frustrated commanders often asked what they were doing in Iraq and many took to writing their own mission statements. One commander wryly summed up his time in Iraq thus: “We did some shit for a while and things didn’t get any worse.”

The report, which Defence says is an “unofficial history” that represents the author’s own views, is the product of three years’ work and includes more than 75 interviews with military figures, correspondence with other sources, and full access to classified documents.

Palazzo planned it as an unclassified book to be published by the Army History Unit, aimed at teaching junior officers about the Iraq War, but it grew into a larger, classified project that Palazzo hoped would be distributed internally, including to senior Defence leaders.

That did not happen. Instead the report was shelved.

Its release comes as Australia once again ponders the US alliance in the era of Donald Trump, with Australian troops back in Iraq, and with the Pentagon poised to release a new game plan to defeat the Islamic State terror group that could involve asking for more help from Canberra.

Prime Minister John Howard and President George W. Bush in 2003. Photo: AP

Planning for war
Howard’s motivation of strengthening the alliance did not help his war planners come up with options.

“Neither the Howard government nor the Minister for Defence [Robert Hill], the CDF [Chief of the Defence Force] or even the [Chief of Army Peter Leahy] would provide the force option planners with any strategic direction,” Palazzo writes.

The military rule of starting with the strategic aims, deciding what forces were needed to meet them, then matching that with what you have available was “turned … on its head”.

They looked instead at “what was available in the ADF cupboard”, what could be deployed, what would survive on the battlefield and finally what the Americans would appreciate.

The ADF already had senior personnel attached to the US Central Command – which covers the Middle East – through its involvement in Afghanistan, and by early September 2002 had “good access to the emerging CENTCOM campaign plan” on Iraq, Palazzo writes. But Howard was determined not to commit Australia prematurely, making life harder for his planners, who were working in secrecy and without a clear set of objectives.

The cupboard, it turned out, was not particularly full. The SAS were well-known to the Americans from Afghanistan and would be keenly welcomed, but other options including tanks were weighed and thrown out. What was more, the ADF couldn’t actually get itself to the Middle East and would have to rely on US transport to get it there.

Workers remove anti-war graffiti from the Sydney Opera House in 2003, shortly before PM John Howard, announced Australia would join the US coalition in Iraq. Photo: Rick Stevens

So when the US began dropping hints that Australia provide an armoured reconnaissance unit – made up of light armoured vehicles – to help protect the 1st Marine Division’s western flank as it drove to Baghdad, Australia baulked.

It would be expensive and require a large number of personnel – up to 2000 – who would likely be involved in “close combat, resulting in casualties”. The Australian Light Armoured Vehicles would have needed some upgrades but “none of these were insurmountable”, Palazzo writes.

General Peter Cosgrove, chief of the Australian Defence Force in 2003. Photo: Andrew Taylor

Then chief of army Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy pushed for the cavalry to be sent but “Cosgrove pushed back”, finding the “manpower requirement too large”.

“The government was uncomfortable with the prospect of losses due to the possible negative effect on the domestic political environment,” according to the report.

The “official explanation” given to the Americans was that the ADF needed 60 days to prepare such a cavalry group, which wouldn’t give them enough time. The idea was killed off and the Americans gave up asking.

Cosgrove, who had led Australian troops in East Timor to considerable acclaim, understood the “inherently political nature of the application of military force”. The report concluded: “Due to the CDF’s intent to manage issues that had parliamentary or media implications – and almost anything fell within this mandate – Cosgrove effectively became the deployment’s decision-maker for virtually everything.” Usually, much of the military decision-making is delegated.

Sir Peter’s office said he had not seen the report until Fairfax Media sent it to him this week and it would “not be appropriate for a Governor-General to discuss or provide commentary on operational matters such as recent military campaigns in which he was involved”.

However a source close to Sir Peter said the then chief of defence had felt for several years before the war that the existing structure of operational headquarters based in Sydney was poorly located and under-resourced to run highly sensitive operations.

On the Baghdad medical supply drop, the source said Sir Peter had been “disappointed” the delivery had not made it to the hospitals but believed the landing was “worth the risk” and such operations are “always characterised by some level of confusion”. Howard said it was “unrealistic” to comment without having time to read the report in detail.

When he announced Operation Baghdad Assist in April 2003, Sir Peter was specifically asked whether security in Baghdad might prevent the supplies’ delivery. He replied: “Whatever it takes, it’ll get there.”

Palazzo writes that Howard and Sir Peter “played a dangerous if calculated game, perhaps the most risky act they committed” during the Iraq War. Publicity stunts in warfare need to deliver what they promised, or trust in the government disappears.

Meanwhile, as possible Australian contributions were knocked out of consideration leaving special forces as the only significant Australian ground force in what was largely a land war, the ADF became less and less useful. It also highlighted the fact that the Army was not prepared to fight against “even a mildly competent opponent”, Palazzo writes.

A crew member of HMAS Kanimbla farewells his wife and child as his ship sets sail for Iraq. Photo: Kate Geraghty

An Australian Light Armoured Vehicles (ASLAV) from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment arrives in Iraq.

The invasion
Saddam Hussein and his depraved sons still had six hours and 41 minutes to meet US President Bush’s ultimatum to leave Iraq when Australian SAS soldiers slipped through a breach in the mud berm along the Jordanian border and entered Hussein’s country.

When they set foot into Iraq ahead of the March 20 deadline, their mission was to find and seize the Scud missile sites from which the coalition feared Saddam might launch weapons of mass destruction at Israel to drag it into the conflict and provoke a backlash from other Arab countries. For such an important task – especially as weapons of mass destruction were the chief stated reason for the invasion – there was strangely “a near total lack of hard data on the number and location of Iraq’s launchers”, Palazzo wrote. “The concern over the possibility of a launch was not matched by a timely US intelligence effort to identify probable launch sites or hiding points.”

Crew from HMAS Adelaide prepare to board a merchant vessel in the Persian Gulf, in search of illegal weapons. Photo: Corporal Neil Ruskin

As it turned out, Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and no Scud launchers at the ready in the western desert. The SAS would ultimately look to do more, asking for their area of operations to be extended – a request also made by the Americans and cautiously approved by Sir Peter – so they could capture Al Asad Air Base, which admittedly was not defended and which Palazzo described as “not an event of great significance”.

“The reality was that in its [area of operations] the squadron was running out of things to do,” he writes.

In all they exchanged fire with the Iraqis up to 24 times over the next 42 days, going on to capture Iraqi regime members escaping Baghdad, clear a cement factory, and call in airstrikes on a radio tower. They would receive a citation for gallantry.

However, Palazzo makes the point that whether the Australians wanted it or not they were being drawn into the US goal of regime change, rendering Howard’s insistence that Australia was only participating in the disarming of the regime academic. A post-war briefing “illustrated the extent to which Australian objectives had become aligned with those of the United States despite government claims to the contrary”.

If the SAS ended up performing tasks other than those originally assigned to them, many Australian forces ended up doing little at all. Indeed, Palazzo repeatedly questions the point of sending some assets.

The SAS were supported by a platoon of commandos – a “quick reaction force” to help if the SAS got into trouble. But Palazzo notes that the commandos’ small staging base in Jordan over the border was too far away. They entered Iraq to help search Al Asad base, but otherwise their role “beg[ged] the question of whether or not the commandos deployed with a serious mission or if they were … to just make up the numbers”.

The Perth-based SAS are an older special forces unit specialising in stealth, reconnaissance missions and precision strikes. The Sydney-based commandos are a newer, highly trained regiment that carry out targeted strikes but also do small-scale combat, counter-terrorism and rescue operations.

It became a source of real tension between Australia’s two Army special forces groups, who had not been given time to get to know each other ahead of the war – the commandos’ first. “The commandos came to resent both the treatment they received from the SAS on a personal level and also the nature of the tasks they received on a professional one,” Palazzo wrote, leading to “hostility and jealousy that soured the relationship”.

Even more puzzling was the deployment of Chinook helicopters with the special forces. The pilots were not trained to insert special forces into hostile environments and the aircraft did not have electronic warfare equipment needed to avoid Iraqi missiles, and therefore could not actually fly in the country. Instead they delivered supplies within five nautical miles of the border. An SAS troop was dropped into Iraq by US helicopters. Palazzo concludes “it is not possible to explain the rationale behind the CH-47s allocation” to the war.

Logistics came up particularly short. The worst affected were Australia’s 32 clearance divers, who despite being land-based could not get support from the logistics base in the Middle East and had to ask the Navy in Sydney for resupplies. They “virtually became wards” of other countries’ forces while they were clearing mines from the murky waters of Umm Qasr port.

Palazzo wrote that there had “rarely been in the annals of war an opponent as hopeless as the Iraqi military and a commander as incompetent as Saddam Hussein”.

It was not a proper test of Australia’s war-fighting abilities.

A young girl and her little sister just north of the Iraq-Kuwait border, on the eve of the invasion in 2003. Photo: Jason South

Descent into chaos
The US mistakes in the aftermath of the invasion are well known. Palazzo notes that internal reports both in the US and Australia warned of a descent into anarchy, but the American dissenters were ignored by the Pentagon and the Australians were too far away to be heard.

A minute to then defence minister Robert Hill on February 4, 2003, warned that Iraqis would not tolerate a “straight out foreign occupation for any length of time” and that phase four of the war – the stabilisation and reconstruction – was “where the war would be won or lost”.

The coalition began to lose right from the start. As early as April 10, the Chief of the Defence Force’s daily briefing referred to a “looming humanitarian crisis” in Baghdad. In this post-invasion phase, as ancient sectarian hostilities that had been masked by Saddam’s secular tyranny surfaced with horrific violence, many Australian personnel began to question more than ever what they were doing there in Iraq.

Australian troops were tasked with training and supporting Iraqi security forces . Photo: Sergeant John Carroll

But even as the country descended into blood-soaked chaos, Australia’s mission did not change in response. “The Howard government would not allow the changing reality of Iraq to modify its original intent,” Palazzo writes.

Chief of Army Peter Leahy had favoured sending a larger engineering group for reconstruction, along with forces to protect them. It was an expensive option but one in line with the basic tenets of counterinsurgency: meeting the population’s basic needs means they are less vulnerable to recruitment by radicals. It was not taken up.

“The Army’s major proposals would not make the final mix,” Palazzo writes. He adds that security is essential to nation-building and humanitarian work and yet Australia, despite claiming these as goals, made no attempt to join the fight against the insurgency. The “logical conclusion” once again was Australia was there to “promote the US alliance”, Palazzo wrote.

This was fine, he added, from a national interest perspective. “However as US personnel continued day after day to return home from Iraq in body bags – with Australia not sharing the load – the ability of Canberra to sustain its rationale for being in Iraq must be questioned,” he wrote. “It would be interesting to know the reaction of US personnel who served in Iraq to Australian timidity.”

Money looted from a bank in downtown Baghdad on April, 2003. Photo: AP

The personnel cap for the reconstruction phase – Operation Catalyst – was 897, mostly security forces to protect Australian diplomats, a navy frigate, transport aircraft, air defence guards for Baghdad airport, weapons of mass destruction analysts and staff in headquarters.

The security detachment was raised in a hurry because the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade wanted to resume diplomatic relations faster than Defence had anticipated, particularly to safeguard Australia’s wheat exports to Iraq.

Some troops arrived without weapons. With no catering personnel provided, they lived on US combat rations for the four-month deployment, losing an average of six kilograms per soldier.

The Australian commitment was increased when about 450 soldiers were sent to the relatively quiet southern province of Al-Muthanna to protect Japanese engineers doing construction work.

One officer told Palazzo that the “unstated policy of Operation Catalyst [was] that ‘no mission was worth dying for’”.

Many wanted to do more. The lack of a clear mission was one of the most common complaints among commanders struggling to figure out why they were in Iraq. “Numerous rotation commanders – those who directed the ADF’s means at the coalface of Australia’s participation in the conflict – were convinced of the failure of the organisation to inform them of what they were supposed to achieve in Iraq.”

Some commanders took to writing their own mission statements. One wrote in his post-operation report: “[The] hierarchy doesn’t know what it wants out of Iraq other than to say we were there and get out without mass casualties.”

It was “enormously frustrating”, another commander wrote. One called the mission “flag waving” and feared coalition allies would conclude the ADF was a “pack of posers”. Another was angered by being accused by the Middle East commander of “mission creep” – though no mission had been defined to enable him to gauge where the boundaries lay in the first place.

It was just one year later that Australians were back to fight the Islamic State terror group – a testament to the massive strategic failure by the US.

Howard, meanwhile, secured “a victory, albeit a tainted one” in a narrow strategic sense by deepening the alliance at a relatively low cost, Palazzo concludes. But this was because Bush was prepared to settle for the low price Howard offered. That won’t always be the case.

With considerable prescience, Palazzo writes that “Australian leaders, both political and military, should understand that in a different conflict US leaders may or may not be so accommodating.”

Fairfax defence correspondent David Wroe discusses the implications of Howard's war in Iraq. Video: Chris Hammer

That could almost have been written with a certain self-proclaimed “deal-maker” in mind who might demand a higher price. But whether it is Donald Trump or a future US leader who puts greater demands on allies, Australians will need to weigh up very carefully how to best manage this crucial relationship.

Palazzo concludes that we strengthened the alliance but helped enable our giant and powerful friend to deliver themselves a self-inflicted wound, given “the war’s only strategic winners are Iran and China” – an observation that has only been further vindicated in the six years since Palazzo finished the report.

Gold Member

Australia anteed up to buy a future favor from the US. That favor is coming due as the the big red superpower to Australia's north is starting to flex its muscle in the region. They knew years ago they'd have to face China on some front so why not buy a bodyguard?

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." -- New York State Surrogate Court Judge Gideon John Tucker, Final Accounting in the Estate of A.B._, 1, Tucker (N.Y. Surrogate Court) 247, 249 (1866)

Gold Member

Were Aussie relations with US so bad that they had to join stupid US war to improve relations? Sounds like Aussie government is like US government...stupid. T'would be good if people could simply bypass government, sort out affairs and help each other dump their respective governments...sort of like "Organic Regime Change, Political Enema Preferred By the Health Conscious Around The Globe"

Size doesn't count!

Were Aussie relations with US so bad that they had to join stupid US war to improve relations? Sounds like Aussie government is like US government...stupid. T'would be good if people could simply bypass government, sort out affairs and help each other dump their respective governments...sort of like "Organic Regime Change, Political Enema Preferred By the Health Conscious Around The Globe"

No, you'd have come here to protect your assets down here regardless, Echelon for one, plus stuff we are probably not aware of. The location is of use to you guys for a number of reasons... but we'd support you anyway, that is the tacit deal. One reason Trumps recent attitude toward us was just stupid, there is more on the table than he was aware of and I am sure he has been told. Anyway this is old news, we knew that we made no critical difference and we where there for political reasons as much as anything.

I doubt the Chinese will ever try and invade, the bottom line is we are better at digging stuff up and selling it than most anyone. We do it cheaper and better than they can, so long as we sell it to them there is no reason to try and invade and hold what is a logistically VERY difficult country to deal with. There is simply no real benefit to direct invasion, they are better off loaning us money and getting our asses in hock! Chinese investment is probably a greater threat to our sovereignty.

Is this a joke news post? Of course it was the only reason, everyone knew it at the time. Just like every other war the US starts, we tag along for the ride because we are allies, we have US bases all over Australia. Only an idiot would have believed there was any other reason. We joined the coalition of nations wanting cheap oil willingly. I'd go myself... But I have a bad knee, you know how it is.

back from 2004

Were Aussie relations with US so bad that they had to join stupid US war to improve relations?
T'would be good if people could simply bypass government, sort out affairs and help each other dump their respective governments..

That's modern pacifist thinking. The only way to have a decent lifestyle in this world is to take it off someone else. If you think that's unacceptable then give up all your current luxuries (attained through US world dominance) and go live in uttar pradesh india. There you can get a job digging rats out of mud walls for the daily payment of the rats you catch. You get to eat the rats in other words.

Gold Member

That's modern pacifist thinking. The only way to have a decent lifestyle in this world is to take it off someone else. If you think that's unacceptable then give up all your current luxuries (attained through US world dominance) and go live in uttar pradesh india. There you can get a job digging rats out of mud walls for the daily payment of the rats you catch. You get to eat the rats in other words.

Pacifist? Really?!?!
Do you really want to go with the social Darwinism philosophy? To the strong go the spoils! Pffftt! Think the US just came down to OZ, threatened to whoop your ass and the Aussies just made like a beta wolf and gave up the goods? Then you admit you Aussies are just a bunch of pussies? I think there are some Aussies who would disagree with your perspective.

Think the US is "Thugzilla" and we're rich because we waved nukes at everyone? To a degree I can understand this largely erroneous thinking since the US gov did such a dandy job of making Japan it's bitch after WW II and keeping Japan it's bitch to this day. We nuked them then subjugated them, dumped our inflation on them and broke them economically and gave them the social cancers they suffer from today. Now they have their very own nuclear disaster thanks to first generation reactor designs from the US and poor location choice. So we abandon them. Yet the US IS the country that taught Japan to prosper as an industrial society. In fact, the US did such a good job that Japan turned and showed the US how it's done...at least into the 1980's when the US turned and bitch slapped Japan again with the dollar shenanigans.

Of course, Australia was with the US in the pre-nuke part of WW II and the Korea fiasco and in the Vietnam mess. So Australia's hands are dirty also, thanks to the British former empire which taught the US gov well. But you have eyewitness verification of US insanity/psychopathy and wisely kept a safe distance. Interesting that you treat your native population much as the US does for it's native population.

Amongst all these errors there was trade with Australia. Yes, genuine, peaceful exchange making both Australia and the US quite wealthy. As Zed pointed out you have this shiny stuff in the outback that the US and the rest of the world really likes. Aussies are also quite adept at digging out this shiny stuff and selling it to the world. Since your continent is so very far away and surrounded by oceans even the wacky thugzilla, the US, finds that it is easier and in our best interest to simply trade with you than to come down and plunder you. We also like your tea tree oil now and your manuka honey amongst other things.

So, all craziness aside, trade IS where it's at if you want the world to work. Stop the trade and the armies soon follow. That's a long standing component of history. The quest for "empire", as the US has been practising, is indeed a fool's errand. On that I have no argument as the US stands convicted in this. I would also hasten to point out that the US government has long been beyond the control of the US populace, a populace which has profited from US imperial drive is also not too quick to bite the hand that feeds it. So accepting the risk of repeating myself, like I said earlier it would be good if people could simply bypass government to sort out affairs, and help each other dump our respective governments. After all, it is governments who go to war. Me, I have no problems with Australians or Australia beyond the ubiquitous evil of governments. In that respect I am quite guilty of thinking the whole world would be much better off without governments as the world has them today.

back from 2004

Pacifist? Really?!?!
Do you really want to go with the social Darwinism philosophy? To the strong go the spoils! Pffftt! Think the US just came down to OZ, threatened to whoop your ass and the Aussies just made like a beta wolf and gave up the goods? Then you admit you Aussies are just a bunch of pussies? I think there are some Aussies who would disagree with your perspective.

Think the US is "Thugzilla" and we're rich because we waved nukes at everyone? To a degree I can understand this largely erroneous thinking since the US gov did such a dandy job of making Japan ... So, all craziness aside, trade IS where it's at if you want the world to work.

The US just came down to OZ, threatened to whoop our ass? They would never consider it, so why even bring it up. Even the schoolyard bully needs friends. You don't like what I said because you don't understand it, let me explain.

Japan in 1945, that's a joke right? You built bases all across Europe, after you leveled it, lol, and across the pacific, and you have troops in 100 countries today as we speak. Warships crisscrossing every ocean and nuclear missiles pointing this way and that from 100 platforms around the world and you want to claim the US is powerful because of trade? Your government enforces a peace and has enforced a $US standard and grown rich because of it. Any time a nation wants to be independent from US policy you send in the troops and kill kill kill. And we come too, to give you political cover.

I understand this better than the average American it seems. The average Yank is affronted by the truth, they would rather believe the fake news that all these "Rouge" nations needed US democracy to keep the world safe. What a load of crap! I have no problem with the US dominant system. We have done quite well, as has Canada, japan, even old England. We are all in a Club together, we all grow wealthy through currency manipulation, capital access. If you're not in the Club your Venezuela or Argentina or any number of resource rich nations that are now suffering economic collapse. trade? trade has noting to do with it, Even the Roman's knew it was their armies that brought home the wealth.

Your current President, who never would have gotten elected if he'd told the truth, is a master image maker. I'm OK with him, but I have no illusions where he will take the USA. He will take it down the same path every other president has because that's the only choice acceptable to the people of the united states. The alternative is a state worse than Venezuela or Argentina. No, you will be forced to follow in the footsteps of Clinton, Bush, Obama, all of which stayed the course of western imperialism. At least until the next global war.